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  You may have to take the "back-door" approach and look for the opposite of waste: work. Work is the value-added activity in the operation.  It is everything that waste is not.  So when you can't see the waste, find the work.

When you are at the gemba, you are watching the work. We like to say you are "looking for waste" and list seven, or eight, or ten different categories of waste that you are supposed to look for. I think it is simpler than that. An ideal workflow is smooth. The product moves smoothly, without starts and stops, without sudden changes in momentum. The people move smoothly. Each of their motions engages the product and advances the work in some way. Machines do not interfere with the smooth movement of product or people. Information flows the same way. There is nothing in how it is stored, retrieved, or presented that causes people to break their smooth rhythm. When you watch the work, try to visualize what smooth would look like. Smooth has no wasted motions, no excessive activities. Anything that doesn't look smooth is likely the result of an accommodation, an awkward operation, poor information presentation, poor computer screen layout and workflow. Just another way of looking at it.

A Lean Enterprise is centered on the concept of flow. Flow is one of five key Lean Principles identified by Womack and Jones in their book Lean Thinking. They stressed that you need to make value flow. It was this creation of flow that would make it possible to eliminate waste. When material and information flow continuously, there is less waste in the system. This is true by definition. If there were a lot of waste, material and information would not be flowing.

It would be bold... where do we start!?

Perhaps a little hard to tell, but there's an identical air conditioning unit in every single little office. Hundreds of them (it's a large building). I saw similar examples with large apartment buildings. Is central air a waste? Sure there's some production efficiency in large-scale utilities - wait did I just say that? But how much of that efficiency is wasted when it is delivered to areas that don't necessarily need it. Would smaller units that can be easily turned off create greater aggregate system efficiency? Aggregate "actual in use" efficiency vs. the "large scale production efficiency"? It's the same issue that electric cars and makers of single-home power plants (solar, geo, etc) are wrestling with.

I don't know about this one.

And she is right. It makes no sense, based on her experience, to work hard to expose waste. Unless. Unless you and I, leaders in our organizations, act differently as well. Unless we demonstrate exposing waste gets rewarded, not punished. Unless we walk the talk ourselves. Unless we say thank you. Unless we demonstrate respect for her opinion. That's trust. And, without it, all the waste we so nobly hope to find remains hidden. Keep on learning.

The more steps you have in a process, the more waste you'll have. No matter how smooth, efficient, and well-designed the process, more steps (and more people) means more waste.

How do Lean organizations develop their employees if Lean considers expenditure of resources other than for creation of value to be wasteful? First, a true lean organization isn't obsessed with waste. If anything, they are obsessed with value.  Waste is anything more than the absolutely minimum required to add value to a product or service; waste is not just anything that doesn't create value. I can't imagine much value can be delivered without the right skills and capabilities in the organization. Therefore, I don't think there is any conflict between developing employees and waste elimination. Second, a lean organization thinks about the total system, and thinks long term. There is a constant pursuit of the knowledge between cause and effect. All of that means that there is a strong understanding of the performance impact (effect) of more talented and skilled people (cause). Third, people think too narrowly about how they develop their people that they think it all must cost dollars, because it is all about training. I'm not suggesting that you should stop training; I've rarely seen an organization that is over-trained. What I'm suggesting is that the increase in developing people come from coaching and experimentation. These two sources of development are very powerful when done consistently and for the long-term.

Office Waste

Article about waste in office operations and personal waste as well.

The lesson: waste doesn't get eliminated until someone asks why is it there!

Great story...

CLOSED MITT is an acronym used to categorize waste. It expands on the traditional '7 Wastes' that are frequently used in lean efforts.

The video is a bit lengthy for the message.  However, it definitely gets the point across in a vivid illustration.

Below are the 10 main ideas Wakamatsu claims Taiichi Ohno lived by: Wastes hide, so start by disclosing all of your mistakes Discover the truth beyond your understanding Increasing production while limiting the number of workers is the only way to gain true success Act on problems right away and do not procastinate Don't feel satisfied by saying "I finished the job"; go beyond that and say "I can do more" Add "Appropriate Timing" to "Appropriate Method" in problem solving Believe in "I can" and question "I can't" The key to achieving progress is to never give up Don't do work at an average pace; the shortest way is always the easiest Change yourself first, if you want to change someone else

Wastes hide, so start by disclosing all of your mistakes Love it! Act on problems right away and do not procrastinate Great! The key to achieving progress is to never give up Yes! Don't do work at an average pace; the shortest way is always the easiest Amazing! Change yourself first, if you want to change someone else Timeless!

Pre-bankruptcy, they (GM) used to collect data from automotive markets around the world, analyze it, and assemble it into large powerpoint decks that circulated every month to 150 recipients. Suspecting that nobody read them, Girsky ordered the report suspended for one month. When only a handful of complaints came in, Girsky discontinued the report.

Brilliant!

Real Kaizen thinking is based on making these little changes on a regular basis: always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness while reducing waste.  The western philosophy is often summarized as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." However, the Kaizen philosophy is to "do it better, make it better, improve it even if it isn't broken, because if we don't, we can't compete with those who do."

The waste of searching reduced.

Great article on Muda, Muri & Mura - 7 wastes, Unevenness & Overburdened. I'm going to add this to our CI Training.

A Lean Product Development Process comprises 3 basic elements: (1) driving waste out of the product development process, (2) improving the way projects are executed with stage-gate A3 management process, and (3) visualizing the product development process.

It's often easier to describe what lean isn't than what it is. Lean isn't about being spartan, skinny or stingy. It isn't about slash-and-burn cost cutting, reducing headcount or beating up suppliers to get the lowest price. Being lean means systematically removing anything impeding the free flow of value to the receiving party. Lean innovation isn't about doing more with less; it's about doing better with less. That might sound like a nuance, but think about it: You've undoubtedly said "no more" many times, even about something good. When was the last time you said, "Let's not have better"? There's no limit on better.

Kanban, which was originally modeled after a Toyota Production System, means "billboard" or "signboard" in Japanese. Scheduling systems like Kanban help to eliminate wasted resources, help people make more efficient use of their time, build stronger and more robust businesses, and improve current designs. This way, future businesses are able to reap the reward of previous experiences, solutions, and expertise. 

The answer to why Kanban is so effective in helping people and businesses DO THINGS BETTER actually has more than one part. We'll be listing a few of these parts below.